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Hunter's Moon
Hunter's Moon is the 16th short story in the anthology , published in May 1950. The story is set at an R.A.F. staff college during the Second World War. In the anthology, this story is preceded by The Quest of the Golden Fleece and followed by Mars Shakes a Cocktail. Synopsis The Group Captain of an R.A.F. staff college talks to a group of new students about the hunting instinct which is present in a man. He reminisces about a former pilot of his who had developed an infatuation with a supposed woman he had seen while flying over Holland. The Group Captain tried to cure the pilot of his obsession but seems to make things worse. Plot (may contain spoilers - click on expand to read) "Give a man something to hunt and he will be happy," so says a Group Captain to a group of new staff college students. As an example, he gives the example of a pilot who served with him when he was the C.O. of a Hurricane squadron. The pilot, Desmond van der Rande, was a South African. He was particularly upset when Rotterdam, the old home town of his family, had been been bombed. He requested and was granted permission to perform night intruder missions over Holland and soon developed a routine of stalking German night bombers flying around the airfield at Keppel. One night, on his way back from Keppel, he flashed a "V" sign on morse with his lights as he passed the Dutch coast and was surprised to receive an answering "V". This continued to happen on subsequent nights, so, dogged by curiosity, he deliberately flew low and thought he saw a figure behind the answering torch. In his next move, Desmond dropped a package of tea over the location and received by morse a word of thanks and a request for coffee. From then on, it became a regular practice that soon began to overshadown the original intruder mission. Desmond started dropping sugar, soap and other luxuries and even made a parachute to drop a bottle of wine. One day he asked for permission to go over the location by daylight. Desmond's C.O. realised he was too obsessed with the figure on the ground that he would be useless for other missions so he let him go. Desmond came back swearing that he saw a beautiful blue-eyed fair-haired woman in a blue dress. Things began to escalate until she asked for cigarettes. Did she have a boyfriend to give them to? But still Desmond was undeterred. He delivered the cigarettes with a photo of himself and signalled, "Good night, sweetheart" and received a response of "Good night, darling"! Then some nights later, the light failed to appear. Desmond looked out for it night after night but it was no more. He was devastated and had to be grounded. The C.O. happened to meet Lurgens, a Dutch liaison officer and discussed his predicament. Lurgens had a suggestion. There was to be a reception for a newly formed Dutch squadron comprising mainly Dutch pilots who had managed to escape from German-occupied Europe. It happened that there was a young pilot who had recently escaped from Holland with his sister. She was indeed blue-eye and fair-haired, but not very pretty. Why not have her agree to pretend to be the woman behind the signalling torch and then introduce Desmond to her? This would shake Desmond out of his obsession. So it is all arranged and the C.O. took Desmond to the reception and he is introduced to the Dutch girl. Did it work? It turned out that the Dutch girl really was the one signalling and she and Desmond got married forthwith! Characters *Desmond van der Rande *Lurgens Aircraft *Hawker Hurricane Ships Places Visited *An R.A.F. staff college *Keppel, Holland Research Notes Publication History References Category:Short stories Category:Other short stories Category:Adult short stories